Tag: FMCN

Here are five simple ways to bet against the dollar; from opening a savings account in a foreign currency to investing in precious metals or American Blue Chip stocks.

1) ETFs. Perhaps the easiest way to bet against the dollar is by investing in an inverse dollar ETF. The PowerShares US Dollar Index Bearish ETF (NYSE:UDN) is the best in class with a daily trading volume around 156,000 shares. UDN shorts futures contracts as it tries to track the Deutsche Bank Short US Dollar Index (USDX) Futures Index. A better option, though, might be shorting an ETF that’s long the dollar in the form of UDN’s sibling, the PowerShares DB US Dollar Index Bullish ETF (NYSE:UUP). UUP has a trading volume that’s 16 times higher than UDNs, and some sources argue shorting long ETFs is a better strategy than going long short ETFs.

2) Buy gold. Since the supply of gold is relatively stable, the precious metal’s price tends to behave independently of the actions at the Fed’s printing press. If the value of the dollar goes down, gold prices can stay the same, but it’ll still take more dollars to buy the same amount of gold. Throw increased investor demand for gold into the mix when inflationary fears are building in the economy, and you’ve got a recipe for surging gold prices.

3) Convert your dollars to yuan. The Chinese government has loosened the strings it has the yuan of late, finally allowing allowing Americans to open yuan savings accounts directly in the U.S. The Bank of China branches in New York and L.A. allow investors to save cash in the form of renminbi (deposit up to $20,000 a year). Kiplinger also recommends checking out EverBank, which offers savings accounts in 20 foreign currencies (provided you pay a 0.75 percent transaction fee when you buy and sell currencies). Accounts can be started with as little as $2,5000.

4) Invest in multinational Blue Chips. While companies like tractor-manufacturer Deere & Company (NYSE:DE), The Coca-Cola Company (NYSE:KO) and software company Oracle Corporation (NASDAQ:ORCL) are all headquartered in the U.S., they derive significant portions of their income overseas. In the case of Oracle, 70 percent of the company’s revenues come from business outside of the U.S. Not only does these investments give you exposure to emerging economies, they hedge your exposure to the dollar while paying a modest dividend.

5) Invest directly in foreign companies. In the tech realm, the Chinese market operates behind what’s been dubbed The Great Firewall. American tech companies can’t get in, and a lot of the country’s biggest tech companies aren’t yet trying to capture audiences outside the domestic market. That means growth in your investment is unmoored from the performance of the dollar. In tech, consider SINA Corporation (NASDAQ:SINA), the maker of a Twitter-like microblogging service called Weibo. China’s financial markets has a new player in wealth management company Noah Holdings Limited (NYSE:NOAH) and the Chinese advertising industry looks like it’s led by Focus Media Holding Limited (NASDAQ:FMCN). There are also numerous plays in China’s solar industry from JA Solar Holdings Co., Ltd. (NASDAQ:JASO) to Trina Solar Limited (NYSE:TSL) to name a few.